Happy Valentine's Day!

by Robin Foroutan and Stephanie MandelFebruary 09, 2018

Happy Valentines Day!

- Here’s to Your Heart Health -

Valentine’s Day is around the corner and love in the air! Naturally, that brings our attention to our hearts. In this video, Dr. Morrison explains how the heart works, and how you can use diet, exercise and specific supplements to keep your heart (and the hearts of those you love) going strong. If your heart needs a little extra TLC, we are proud to announce The Morrison Center’s new Cardiac Prevention and Restoration (CPR™) Program, a comprehensive approach to transforming and optimizing heart health.

First, let’s take a moment to appreciate the heart and all it does for us: the heart is a muscle that pumps blood through blood vessels thousands of times a day, throughout our entire life. It’s not something we generally think about, but that requires a lot of cellular energy, technically called adenosine triphosphate or ATP.

ATP is produced by mitochondria inside our cells, aka “the powerhouse of the cell.” Mitochondrial “function” has received a lot of attention lately because it plays a huge role in the ability of our cells and tissues (basically our entire bodies) to make the energy required for all of our bodily functions, including our body’s ability to heal itself and maintain good health. The more mitochondria we have in our cells, the more ATP energy we can produce, and more is definitely better. Given how energy-intensive the heart’s job is, it makes sense that heart cells contain a LOT of mitochondria. In fact, heart cells have the highest concentration of mitochondria in the entire body.

In addition to supporting mitochondrial health and ATP production, we can further support the cardiovascular system by helping blood vessels stay flexible and strong, enabling efficient blood flow. Here are some tips to help improve both heart and circulatory health:

An ﻿Anti-inflammatory Diet﻿, like our Daily Benefit Program, supports heart health along with other health-promoting benefits — you can learn more about anti-inflammatory diets here.

﻿Exercise﻿ stimulates all the muscles in the body,

including the heart. Exercise also stimulates the production of more mitochondria, which means…. more ATP! This helps you get stronger, improves endurance and performance, as well as longevity and improved mitochondrial health.

In addition to diet and exercise, there are ﻿dietary supplements﻿ that help support heart health by improving ATP production and supporting healthy blood vessel function. These are some of our favorites:

This supplement can boost heart health by supporting ATP production. The two main ingredients are carnitine and ribose:

This is a great supplement for athletes and people with cardiovascular concerns. We recommend one scoop, once or twice a day depending on your activity level, in a shake or mixed in three ounces of water.

This supplement contains beet extract to boost nitric oxide production, an antioxidant that signals the blood vessels to dilate, which increases blood flow. We recommend taking one tablet once or twice a day to help improve nitric oxide levels.

It wouldn’t be Valentine’s Day without chocolate! This sugarless chocolate provides lots of polyphenol antioxidants, so you can feel good about indulging in this heart-healthy treat! It’s sweetened with stevia, so it fits into an anti-inflammatory meal plan.